The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1887-06-05

The Most Brilliant of CoIors and the
Sweetest of Substances.

The Nest Brilliant of CoIors and the
Sweetest of Substances
The history of coal tar product is a 70.
nance of science. 1t seems strange that
the most beautiful colors now used IN the
dyeing Of fabrics come from black nasty
substance that soils everything it touches
and which emits most disaereeable odor.
When bepzine, naphthia and creosote
were first obtained by distilation of coal
tar they were regarded as wonderful
triumphs of chemistry, but no one at that
time dreamed how extensive mine of
wealth still remained to be worked ia so
nnpromising a substance. Iu 1856. how
ever a chemist named Berkins produced
from benzine the first analine dye known
as.mauye The process was full of Difficult
ties. but these were so rapidly overcome
that within yea after the discovery of
mauve in the chemists laboratory it was
being used by silk dyeIs Other chem
lists at onc9 began researches in the same
direction, and the next was that of the
beautiful color magenta, which was pro
duced in the laboratory of NJ. Verguln, a
French chemist. In 1861. beautiful vioiet
and blue colors were produced by French
chemists. but the process of manufacture
was speedily initiated in England aud
Germany.
The researches of two German Chem
lists, Graebe and Liebermann, result
ed in a further discovery Of great
semitic mpo lance. The most important
dye stuff has for ages been the root of
tue madden plant. The chemical consti
iuent of madden which gives toit its color
in5 is known TO chemists as alizarine, and
the two German chemists discovered that
this was chemical related to anthracine.
a product formed of the is'illation of
coal. This discovery was speedily fol
lowed by the artificial production of the
madden dye from the coal tar, and the
manufacture was begun, which has ex-
tensively sGperced the use of the mad
der root. la 1869 the price paid for mad
der ranged from 10 TO is cents a poun (,
and now the equival. at in artificial mad
der eye can be Obtained at the rate of one
cent pound. Since the discovery of ar
tjticial alazarine the production of coal
tar colors has been rapidly extended, so
that the brilliant scarlet and red dyes Of
cochiDeal, The intense blue of indigo, and
the yellows of querciton and safflower,
are all artiticially produced at an expense
far less than that at which natural coIors
can be procured, and it is the belief that
coal-tat colors are destined sooner or later
to supersele, as the primary source of
color, all the costly dye woods hitherto
used in the ornamentation of textile
fabrics.
The most astonishing development of
chemical science in this production is of
very recent date, and was accomplished
in the laboratory of the Johns Hopkins
University at Baltimore, but tie tests and
processes by which Il manufacture is
being brought INTO commercial use are b.
ing carried on in Germany, WHITTIER the
chemist who made the discovery has gone.
A substance has been discovered which
has over 300 times the saccharine strength
of ordinary cane sugar IL has been
designated by the appropriate name OF
saccharine. From accounts that appear
of the extraordinary sweet pungency Of
tnis substance it is believed that, in com
binasion with glucose, sugar can be pro-
ddced at ,ces far Glow that which it is
possible to make cane or grape sugar 1t
is Furthermore stated that this substance is
absol itely incapable OF fermentation, so
that fruit preserved in it runs no risk of
spelling, and its introduction therefore
promises to reyolutionize the canning in
duStrV